The light fell across what used to be a face, making me almost throw up. Slime was oozing out of its mouth as it moved, opening then closing as if trying to speak. The flesh was close to being completely rotted and hanging by shear will alone. Every sluggish step that it took made the flesh swing back and forth on his chin, causing me to panic. No eyes and yet the thing looked at me. I had my blade out in seconds and was trying to cut its hands off, but was losing the battle rapidly. I was getting backed into a wall, and it was gaining momentum at getting its bony fingers around my throat. I kicked out hitting it in the knee, but only caused myself to get pulled to the ground as it fell over.
I screamed with everything I had as it opened its mouth and bit down on my shoulder. Frantic, I felt for the blade that had been knocked from my hand when I hit the floor, but it was nowhere within my reach. I could feel my blood running down behind the hair on my neck as the thing gnawed on my shoulder like a wild dog. I tried to roll from my side, but I was pinned under the thing’s lower half. So I did the only thing that I could, I screamed again.
Tammy came flying up the stairs with her blade in hand and started trying to pull the living corpse off of me, but had little more luck than I did. She put her blade under its nose and pulled back taking the head halfway off. Black gore poured from the thing, covering the front of my body and still the thing chewed. I could hear my own bone crushing under the pressure of it jaws. Tammy reached around its neck, grabbed a handful of hair and in one swift movement she fell back with its head in her hand, and a small piece of me in its mouth. I fell to my back with the thing still holding on. I pulled at its hands but they were frozen in place. Jacob was the first up the stairs. Without hesitation he was breaking the bony fingers away from my shirt. Once I was free I pushed as he pulled the thing off and stood falling back against the wall.
“Bastard set a trap,” I said trying to wipe the gore off my face.
“You must not venture out alone, it is why we pair in twos,” Jacob said looking at my shoulder.
“He is correct,” Cates added coming up the stairs, going into the room that the thing came out of.
“You’re both right. I shouldn’t have come up without Tammy. Wait, how’d you know I came up here alone?”
“Simple, I heard footsteps running when Jacob took to the back door,” Cates explained.
“Tammy,” I said pushing off the wall, “thank you, it almost had me.”
“You were putting up a good fight,” she smiled, then pulled my shirt off my shoulder. “You’re going to need that cleaned.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied then I hugged her. “I’m sorry.” Then I kissed her cheek.
We found four more of those things in different parts of the house, all decomposing, and all looking worse than the last. One pulled itself along with a leg missing its foot, oblivious to any sign of pain, even when they cut its head off, as well as the rest of the walking dead that were being decapitated. They held absolutely no emotion. I found a white shirt that had to belong to the doctor, who was now screaming at the top of his lungs to please be let down before it was too late. He made promises from changing us into day walkers, to creating a new world of bloodbreeders and he would “let” us rule. I had to ask Cates to go out and shut him up before I lost my mind. Within minutes the man stopped and Cates was smiling as he walked back through the door.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” I asked sitting at the table in what looked like the kitchen.
“I would not do that knowing he was to meet the sun,” he replied, then tossed a piece of bloody meat on the table.
“Is that what I think it is?” Tammy asked standing up and backing away from the table.
“If you think it is a tongue, then the answer is yes,” Cates nodded, looking over at her. “He will not scream again.”
“You just reached up and pulled it out?” Derek asked with excitement.
“Not exactly, he was not so willing to give it up…”
“Please, can you keep the details to a minimum?” Tammy interrupted before Cates could finish, turning around, placing her back to the rest of us.
“You just took a creatures head,” Jacob added. “In two parts.”
“Yeah, well, that was a little different. It was trying to kill Renee. Besides, it’s not the killing that bothers me. It’s the whole reaching in and yanking someone’s tongue out that put shivers up my spine.”
“I have to agree,” Brandon said looking down at the now charred thing. “Look how it dried up.”
“Does that mean that he’s dead?” Derek asked looking back at me.
“I don’t know.”
“Take the arm of a breeder and it will die just as the body would if you made a killing blow to the heart,” Cates explained, sitting down in front of the tongue.
“Will it grow back?”
“Will what grow back?” Cates asked looking strangely at Derek.
“The arm…the tongue.”
“Of course not. Why would you think such a thing?” Cates frowned at Jacob as
Derek jabbered on.
“Just wondering. Hey, won’t know if I don’t ask, right?” he laughed.
“Better you ask than me,” I murmured under my breath. “I have to admit I was thinking along those same lines myself.”
We sat there and talked about the night’s events. It was decided that we would stay where we were until the next night then make our way back to the boat. I couldn’t help but to worry about Shyanna. I doubted very seriously that the two normals would go anywhere near her. I was hoping that the water I left, as well as the fruit that the normals shared, would last her. Still, I could feel her calling out to her, “me’om”. If they ever opened the door and she got out she would find me. I walked out on the front porch of the moss covered, rustic, old colonial style estate and looked up into the star filled sky and said a ‘thank you’ to the Lord. I wasn’t even sure if He heard me anymore, but I wanted him to know that I was grateful that we survived another night. I also stood there thinking that Shyanna would appear at any moment, but she never did.
There was one room off to the left on the first floor that was a bedroom slash study, where the doctor must have spent most of his time going over past experiments. After the others fell to the call of the rising sun, I went to look more closely at some of the files he had been recently working on. Many of the words I couldn’t understand, much less pronounce, but I sure had no problem understanding the marks by the wide X’s. He had used over seven normals, all being young girls, in the last four months. Even if he did survive the burning heat of the sun, Cates made sure he would never talk again, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t explain things on paper. I knew I was kidding myself. Martin would have told me about such things if he had even had the slightest knowledge of it, because he too seemed to have a great fear of the power of the sun. It certainly showed on his face when he spoke of his first experience with its known truth, and how he remembered the cries of the man who was being burned alive.
“Find anything of importance?” Cates asked, walking up and sitting on the edge of the desk.
“Nothing other than the amount of victims he used. I see you have a problem with sleeping also,” I replied looking up at him.
“It comes with age.”
“Mind if I ask how old you are, like your real age?”
“I am around nine hundred if I were to take a guess. Chin must have seen my size as reason to save me as my old master was put to death. I was bleeding out and the wound could not be closed. Chin was a wise man.”
“I would say you were full of it, if I hadn’t already seen so much.”
“He was the first to train me in weaponry,” Jacob added coming to my side of the desk, leaning back on it and reaching for a file.
“So, you didn’t teach him the fancy foot work?” I asked Cates, putting the file I had back on the desk and picking up another.
“This says he fell asleep to the screams of the experime
nt, lasting longer than any to date.” Then Jacob threw it across the room. “If the sun was not at hand I would take his head. He is a caller of death and many other… things I fear.”
“What do you mean other things? What could be worse than those…things?” I cringed at the thought.
“There are those who can will the power of a true beast. A beast that walks among men, then hunts them when they least expect it,” Cates proclaimed then seemed to slip into deep thought. “I will take my leave.”
“Wait, you’re going to make a statement like that and just walk away?” I questioned, standing up.
“The day pulls me to my rest. Unlike you and Lord Jacob, I have never taken an ancient with my fangs, to the last drop.”
“I won’t forget.”
“That I am sure of My Lady. I bid you good rest.” He went and sat in the far corner of the room, across from my boys.
“You know what he was talking about don’t you?” I asked.
Jacob smiled at me. I knew he would let Cates tell his own story so I didn’t press it. I went through a few more files that were just like the ones before, nothing but lines of victims and big X’s cutting through them. Gilbert may have had a dream of being what he once was, but that dream drove him over the edge and right into the arms of insanity. I felt if I could look out right now he would be nothing more than the ash that was waiting at the bottom of the cross from which he hung. The pull was now grabbing on to me. I laid my head on the desk, and the last thing that I remember was Jacob blowing out the lantern.
***
I woke right where I fell asleep, or would that really be called sleep? I had seen what happens when the others left with the light of day and it seemed that we were just as inanimate as those walking dead things, only we didn’t move; no breath, no heartbeat, not even the twitch of a muscle. I woke thinking on the things that we killed the night before just outside our room, and then I remembered Gilbert on the cross. I stood up and started for the door.
“Do you forget so soon?” Jacob asked stepping out of the dark corner.
“What?”
“I would not open that door just yet.”
“Oh, I guess I did forget,” I laughed nervously. “Almost messed up real bad,
huh?”
“You’ve had so much on your mind that you woke with it.”
“I wanted to find something here.”
“You worry for Johnny.”
As soon as he said it, my head spun around.
“Yes, Renee. Don’t look so surprised. I have known exactly what you have been looking for, and it is something that you will never find.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He is not the first to try. There have been others who have tried to find a way to bring us back into the light, but all have failed.”
“What’s going to happen to his mind when he’s twenty and still in that body?”
“I could tell you what has happened when one so young has been made, but you will not like it.”
“Tell me, Jacob. I love him. I don’t want to see him go through this.”
His stare became stone. “You must lay him to rest.”
“You’re out of your damn mind,” I hissed and stepped back.
“In time you will see madness take the one you love so dearly, giving back a creature without a meaning.”
“Stop it, Jacob! I can’t think about doing something like that. Not now, not ever, and I will cut the heart out of anyone that tries.” I looked back with my face covered in crimson tears racing down my cheeks. “I mean it, do you understand me?”
“Of course,” he bowed. “The future will bring its own answers. There are other things at hand to worry with.” Then he smiled.
“You two are far too noisy. How is one to get any rest around here?” Cates inquired getting to his feet.
“I guess you heard all of that?” I snapped.
“All of what?” he replied
“Never mind.”
I went over to the desk and lit the lantern. The dim light coming from the minute cracks was plenty of light to see by, but I needed to be doing something, anything, to keep my mind off of Johnny and the most assured future that he faced. I waited like a cat waiting on a mouse, for the first sign of movement in Garvin, because it meant the sun was setting and soon after darkness would be upon us. I was chomping at the bit to see what happened to Gilbert as the sun burned high in the sky. The heavy forest cast a shadow, but nothing would keep the noon sun from reaching his pale flesh. Garvin moved, so I stood up, waiting until he pulled himself up on the edge of the couch before I walked to the door which led into the hall and would allow the light of the setting sun to come into the room.
Jacob and Cates were right behind me as I stormed down the hall to the back door of the house. None of us worried because we knew the curtains were pulled; it was the home of a bloodbreeder after all. The back entrance was at the end of the hall, where one would leave their muddy boots and hang their wet coats. At the farm, we called it a mud room. Here, who knew? I reached for the knob and Jacob put his hand on top of mine and turned toward the window. “Not yet.” My hand trembled as I watched the light turn to dusk through the thick heavy material over the windows. Jacob lifted his hand and I swung the door wide.
Instantly we all put our hands over our eyes, it was much brighter than the curtains made it seem. Something else I overlooked. I walked up to the opening of the door and was utterly shocked at what I saw. Gilbert hung whole on the cross. He was dead, but his body remained. Black as coal was the color of his skin, but his clothes were untouched. The darker it got the braver I became. I walked out onto the wet grass and slowly made my way to him. His feet met my chest. I looked him up and down. His face was the same; eyes closed, mouth hanging slightly ajar, he looked more like he was asleep. I reached up and touched his foot and Gilbert jerked to life. He screamed twice, and then burst into ashes covering me head to toe.
“Guess he wasn’t so smart after all,” Derek said from the door.
“Yeah, but he was on to something,” I replied shaking off the doctors remains.
“Not even I have seen such a thing,” Cates added.
“I want to take back as many of his records as we can carry.” I walked back to the house. “I want it done now!”
“You heard her,” Jacob said smiling at Cates.
“For one who wishes not to rule, she has a heavy hand.”
“I heard that!” I called back, and then slammed the door as I went through.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We all hand our hands full as we made our way back to our smaller boat that had been trashed by more than likely one of the doctor’s men, causing us to walk back to the main site where Sydney’s boat was to pick us up. We really didn’t need the direction of our senses, because the closer we got to the deeper water, the louder Shyanna’s cries became. I laughed right along with everyone else, thinking about the pour normals that were on the boat with her. I stepped out into the opening after Jacob and Cates, who waited for the rest of us to join them.
“Why’s the boat way out there? Weren’t they supposed to be here by the bank?” I asked a bit confused.
“Something’s not right,” Jacob said as he started taking off his leather arm sheaths.
“I’ll go with you.” Cates too stripped down to just the cloth that covered his lower half.
I knew Shyanna was alive, everyone did. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Jacob and Cates slid down into what had to be freezing water. Breeder, or not, they had to feel its sting. Tammy stood beside me as Garvin and Sydney walked down one side of the bank, Brandon and Derek going the other way looking for any signs of foul play. Within ten minutes or so the motor of the boat came to life and it soon veered in our direction. I saw Jacob throw a body overboard and panic set in. I dropped the stack of papers and dove in head first, in what I soon found out was truly cold water. I swam as fast as I could, meeting the boat head on.
&
nbsp; “We were coming to get you,” Cates said as he took my hand and pulled me from the frigid water with ease.
“I saw you throw a body over.”
“It looks like your winged friend has had her way with our two normals. Seems they went in the room and never came back out,” he explained as I followed him through the kitchen area and into what used to be the top sleeping quarters.
“Where is she? What did you do to her?” I yelled,
“She is in the small closet. She is very frightened,” Jacob said lifting the last mauled normal.
“She did that?” I asked looking at what was left of the man’s face.
Shyanna had torn the man to ribbons. I couldn’t even make out which one he was. By the time Jacob took him out and threw him over, the boat was close to the shore where the others waited to find out what was going on. Cates filled them in, while Jacob and I tried to coax Shyanna out of the closet.
“Look at the windows,” Sydney said wiping his hand across one. “I don’t have anything on the boat to cover this up. “She scratched the paint off both.”
“Sydney, don’t panic, we will figure it out.” Cates assured him.
“We also don’t have a driver,” Derek added bringing up another thought.
“What are we going to do about that?”
“We have several hours to try and make it back to the others. We’ll cover these the best we can,” Jacob explained pulling covers off the seat cushions.
“That’s not going to stop the sun. It hit’s the water and bounces back up,” Sydney said rushing to the cabinet under the sink. “Damn it.”
“We can get in the motor room,” Brandon suggested.
“There was barely enough room for the ones we had down there the last time,” Tammy interjected.
“Then we will crowd it more,” Cates added stepping back into the room, bending to keep from hitting his head. “Garvin has the wheel.”
“Should we be worried?” I asked, not wanting to burn to ash.
“There are things to be concerned about. I do not wish to cause alarm, but with no one at the wheel, others may board the boat, with it being as close to shore as we will want to be.” Then Cates took a seat on the small bed.
Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others Page 13
